The Bachelor: Red Cards (S20E3)

With the third episode of The Bachelor taking us on a rollercoaster ride of emotion regarding more than one contestant, let’s take a look the episode through the prism of each team that was drafted at the beginning of the season.

Team Fiancée

Lauren B. gets the first one-on-one date card for the episode. She says “shut the front door” in the car, so she’s on pace with Caila for hokey mom-phrases that are likely turn-ons for The Blandchelor.

Ben takes the flight attendant on a date involving…planes. You gotta hand it to Ben for continually pushing the envelope when it comes to lack of creativity. As they fly around in the back of a fancy/old-timey plane, Ben keeps kissing Lauren B.’s microphone.

Isn’t this how you always thought love would be? Speaking of which:

“I’m not super into situations I’ve never been in before…” from the woman who decided to SIGN UP FOR A SHOW WHERE A DUDE DATES 26 WOMEN. This is a nice segue into the fact that The Bachelor producers regularly flaunt the one-on-one date of one contestant in from of the rest of the women – in this case, flying the plane past the house. You would think that the people who signed up for this show would recognize that these things happen and they can’t get every one-on-one, but instead it’s chum in the water and people go apeshit. One theory that was brought up was that since the women have no cell phones, connections to the outside world, or anything to do when not dating the human equivalent of plain yogurt (like not even vanilla yogurt. Just plain yogurt), everything that does happen to them is magnified and focused on. Keep this in mind later.

So they stop flying around after a whi- WHAT IS THAT? BAW GAWD IS THAT THE HOT TUB’S MUSIC?!?

When they asked Ben what he wanted to focus on this season, be it travel, food, experiences, he must have said “hot tubs” over and over until he was escorted from the room. This dude has the imagination of Lawrence from Office Space. Anyway, they spent time making out in a hot tub in the middle of nowhere.

We’re back with these lovebirds at dinner where Lauren B. reveals that she’s so picky about men because of her father, and she wants to find a man who can be a father to her kids like her dad was for her. This is a kinda sweet, creepy thing to say and well, I can’t wait for that hometown visit with the B family!

Ben uses this opportunity to cravenly turn his father’s unexpected triple-bypass surgery into a metaphor for love, noting how distressed his mother was waiting at the hospital. He says, of the horrifying time in his family’s life “I forget the depth that like, love exists.” It’s poetic, at least for The Bachelor. To be clear, of course we’re reminded how much someone means to us when the possibility that they won’t be with us anymore exists – this isn’t dumb nor foolish. Using it on a date as a means to express that that is what he’s looking for in life and love completely bypasses the amount of time and effort put into a relationship that causes such distress in the first place.

You’d think this night in white satin would be over, but the Moody Blues knew their shit, because it is never reaching an end, around here. If you’re wondering if that musical reference was being dropped because we’re about go to two for two in one-on-one dates and private concerts YOU’RE A WINNER. Sadly, we’re all losers for having to experience the gentle movements of Ben and Lauren B. swaying on an area rug to the dulcet tones of [looks at unfamiliar names, googles, got nothing] uh… Lucy Angel? Y’all know her? Me neither. This all took place in a barn, by the way.

♪ If I didn’t want to sli-i-i-i-i-i-i-it my wrists ♪

Team Mom

Caila is back at the mansion crying, and you might be wondering why until you remember that her connection to Ben might be a tad strong because SHE BROKE UP WITH HER LONG TERM BOYFRIEND WHEN SHE SAW BEN ON TELEVISION.

The group date this week is and Alex Morgan and Kelly O’Hare are here, and these are much more worthy celebs than Kevin Hart, in any context. Here are a smorgasbord of quotes and notes:

The stakes of this soccer game just got raised, as the losing team does not get to continue on to the date after-party. Leah took things even further declaring that “blood will be shed.”

Lace didn’t know she could pick up the ball as the goalie this is incredible.

Emily on the other hand is crushing it as the goalie, keeping her team in the game.

Ben is absolutely flabbergasted at the prospect of a tie game. This tells me everything.

Unemployed Rachel desperately wanted/needed a team win for some time with Ben, but she ends up hurting her calf, and in the process, her team’s chances of prevailing. Maybe she can spend an hour with an oscillating fan and feel like it was a date with Ben.

Shushanna then CARRIES Rachel into the house from the car because she’s apparently a contestant on World’s Strongest Woman (physically, not emotionally because she later broke down crying).

Olivia continues to enact the Courtney Contingency by taking Ben away from the girls, not only first, but mid-Ben talking. She then tells Ben that people find her intimidating which is an interesting choice of word, since “condescending” or “open-mouthed” come to mind too.

Jami tells Olivia that the other girls are talking about her physical deficiencies (Emily noted fake boobs and halitosis), and doesn’t tell her what it was immediately causing Olivia to go down her mental checklist of what is wrong with her. It includes calves and cankles but #actually it’s her toes. Olivia’s response to this is:

DO TELL.

Amber gets the group-date rose and Olivia appreciates that she couldn’t get the rose every time, and that Ben is just playing some game and couldn’t possibly have feelings for anyone else. She took his decision to get up off the couch by pushing off her knee as some sort of sign. Lord help us.

Team Craig

Jubilee is the only major player on Team Craig in this episode, as she gets the second one-on-one date in the episode, but not without causing some serious drama in the process. Before she received the date though, Jubilee did bring the gotdamn truth with one observation, noting “I don’t think Ben gravitates towards complicated.” It’s worth noting she did preface this with “I’m so much more complicated than anyone else here.”

Last week I said Jubilee was “the best one,” and I think there was good reason, at the time. She’s an army veteran, she was orphaned and adopted from Haiti, and had managed to cobble her life together to the point that she tried to find love on a dating television show. It’s the American Dream. I…might have been wrong.

She might be a type of crazy we never saw coming. She criticizes Ben for arriving late and then tells him she isn’t really that excited. I don’t know if she’s trying to play it cool or is trying to be funny but this is not going to go well. She even asks if someone wants to go on her date. Granted that is because she’s scared of heights and it involves a helicopter, but it incites a lot of issues with the ladies not going on the date.

She is a damn mess, y’all. She had to spit out caviar, and then Ben asked her what her favorite food was:

She’d fit right in on Baseball Twitter.

Jubilee says to Ben the things she says in the confessional. And I don’t mean that as in like “the type of things she says in the confessional” but literally the exact things she said in a previous confessional that are incredibly awkward. She then told Ben that he doesn’t laugh which isn’t a weird thing to say directly to someone at all.

Jubilee flips the table by saying she feels unloveable. Never shit a shitter, as Rod Farva would say. But no, this is actually tragic because Jubilee is the lone survivor of her family, and she’s suffering from guilt, to which Ben asks “what kind of guilt?” apparently not knowing that Survivor’s Guilt is a real and true thing in this world.

Rose Ceremony

No one can believe that Jubilee got a rose and she’s kind of getting the bitch role that it seemed like Olivia was taking on. No one seems to get along with her, but that might be because she has the social skills of a teenager experiencing a hormone rush. Also, obligatory Olivia Face:

Ben lost two friends prior to the Rose Ceremony in a plane crash. Olivia takes that opportunity to ask Ben to speak first and immediately tells him that she doesn’t like her body from the legs down and [tear] she tries to keep it together sometimes but [sniffle] it’s just so tough.

The Jubilee as outcast role continues with women not really getting along with her, and her secluding herself from them. They then get mad that she gave Ben a massage to help him relax after he lost two friends earlier in the day, because she’s taking up too much time. How dare she try and care for a person in pain? Comforting people, these women.

The ladies (mostly Amber) are trying to force Jubilee into having a chat (where they can attack her), and she reasonably wants nothing to do with it. Amber, not to be deterred, goes after Jubilee for no reason in front of Ben, causing Ben to defend Jubilee and likely regret giving Amber a rose. It’s a spectacular move. This drama leaves Ben exhausted and tired of it all and as he sits down with a big sigh…

…[ENTER LACE]

She’s already crying by the time they got outside. Lord help me, but I think Ben got stuck with some of the most awkward women in the history of this show. “It’s like my tattoo says ‘you can’t love someone else until you truly love yourself.'” [solemn tone] Indeed.

Jami has one of the more memorable meltdowns upon not receiving a rose, devolving into this beauty of a quote:

“My lesson from this is don’t ever expect anything from humans. Just start adopting cats now.”

Meanwhile, as Jami gives up on the human race, Olivia is actively reading too much into every single thing Ben does, such as how he gets up from the couch (he used her knee to help get up, it’s a sign!) to how he hugged her when she got a rose (the same way he hugged everyone).